


Just Another Recovering Heart

by Trigonometrical



Series: 5 + 1: The Series [1]
Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Bathroom Sex, E3 2018, Feelings, Hook-Up, Love Confessions, M/M, Oral Sex, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 13:20:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21180092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trigonometrical/pseuds/Trigonometrical
Summary: Brian’s First E3 was about as overwhelming, magical, and anxiety-inducing as he’d thought it would be. // A prequel to You're Giving Love Instinctively





	Just Another Recovering Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for your cheerleading and your patience with this accidental fic that happened while I was outlining Chapter 5. I was going to wait to post this until the Fic Proper was done, but I got too gosh dang excited for it in the meantime.
> 
> Title is from "Little of Your Love" by HAIM.

_From the very first time that they’d discussed sexual preferences (half-asleep in the E3 Airbnb bathroom before Pat’s morning flight home), Pat has said that he’s vers. Well really, he’d answered _both_, when Brian had mumbled, _how do you like it_, into the skin of Pat’s collarbone._

_However, after many months of fucking each other, dating each other, loving each other (in that order), Brian has yet to see evidence of Pat’s so-called vers-ness. One way or another, despite Brian’s best efforts, Pat always ends up topping when they have sex._

_Which, to be fair, Brian loves. He’s also vers (_sick, me too,_ he’d said in that bathroom before slamming their lips together)._

_—Chapter 1_

\---

Brian’s First E3 was about as overwhelming, magical, and anxiety-inducing as he’d thought it would be—which on the one hand was good, because he’d prepared semi-correctly by packing his Xanax and his favorite note-taking pen for the pressers he went to. But on the other hand, it meant he was absolutely fuckin’ exhausted beyond measure by the last day of the conference, where, sue him, he phoned it in a little bit: drank a beer on the stream and zoned out for a while during the shit he didn’t really care about. That’s E3, baybee.

At least the filming was wrapped, a small blessing even for a crew who mostly liked being in front of the camera. It was hard being On for that long, so Brian’s glad that all they have left is some post-production on videos they want to post before the conference is over. Pat’s flight is early in the morning, Tara shortly behind, but the rest of them are staying almost an extra day, catching a red-eye to New York so they can finish their edits.

Clayton, ever the hard worker, had already finished editing his video, and had decided to take an early night to catch up on sleep. Tara hadn’t lasted much longer, saying, _you fuckers don’t break anything now that daddy’s going to sleep_. Jenna hadn’t wasn’t long for this world after that.

It’s been nice, lounging with Pat and Simone on the couch until past midnight—sort-of watching _The L Word _on Netflix to skew the Airbnb owner’s recommendations, but mostly the three of them independently playing different mobile games on their phones and drinking the last of the weird, way-too-bitter IPAs.

Brian tucks his feet under his butt, shifts his position, as he waits another two minutes and forty-five seconds to regain a life in Two Dots. The last few levels have really been grinding his gears, and he’s about to give up for the night and maybe also head to sleep when Pat’s voice pipes up, seemingly out of nowhere, “Wait, is that dude _filming _them?”

Simone sighs and Brian sees her shake her head out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah that was like, a whole _thing _this season. He wants to make a salacious, pornographic movie about _real _lesbians.”

“By—!”

“Yeah it’s not great,” Brian adds, taking the last swig of his beer. “I mean, it’s unfortunately not the _worst _thing that happens on this show, but it’s uh. _Not great_."

Pat’s quiet for a moment, before asking, “Wait, isn’t she dating that older woman?”

“Ugh, Cherie Jaffe,” Simone says, twirling the tie of her fancy, fluffy robe. “But that was like _last season_, Pat, you gotta keep up.”

Pat hums a little grunting noise and squints at the screen, as if staring _harder _will make the show _better_.

Brian’s got twenty seconds until his next life when Pat scoffs so loud that Brian tunes back in, catches the tail end of Carmen’s big melodramatic speech in the kitchen:

_You’re not living your life, Shane. And if you don’t take any risks, then you might as well be dead._

“Bad advice,” Brian comments, _finally _getting a life back so he can try to beat the dumb treasure hunt level he’s been stuck on for like two days.

“No kidding,” Pat says, pushing his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “I find it hard to believe she’s not _living her life_ when every episode focuses on how good she is at sex. I just think—”

Simone comically throws up her hands. “Oh my _god_,” she exclaims, standing. “It’s tortured and beautiful if you’re a queer teen in the early 2000s, and if you two are gonna keep talking through mama’s stories, I’m gonna go to sleep.”

It’s rhetorical, though—she sashays off to the room she’s sharing with Jenna, and Brian and Pat are left blinking on the couch, in the middle of the kitchen, as the unlicensed Netflix music plays in the background.

Brian gropes around for the Roku remote on the couch cushions, eventually pressing Home so that the screen returns to the main menu and Shane’s tense moment with Carmen is left hanging in the air.

“I can’t believe you watched all of this show,” Pat says, draining the last of his beer. He glances over at Brian, a long enough look that Brian shifts and scooches so he’s facing Pat on the couch instead of forward. “I thought I knew you. I _trusted_ you.”

Brian shrugs. “Yeah, the queer student group at Hopkins had watch parties on Thursday nights, and I didn’t have any classes on Friday mornings my sophomore year.” He rubs his palms on the thighs of his pants. “They switched to _Queer as Folk _after, but that was right before I went to Scotland so I missed out.”

“But did you?” Pat snarks, and Brian stifles a chuckle, shakes his head, smiles.

They lapse into comfortable silence again, Brian trying the next regular level to take a break from the maddening vine situation happening in the treasure hunt. It’s a few minutes before he notices that Pat is shifting his weight back and forth, like when Moose can’t find a comfy napping spot on the couch so he turns and twists and flops every which way. Brian’s spent a lot of time sitting next to Pat on couches, and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt him this fidgety before. Not even when Pat played guitar and his legs were shaking off frame with how nervous he was.

“Y’ all right there, friendo?” Brian asks, putting his phone face down on the cushion. When he looks up, Brian’s startled by Pat’s eyes, already dark and intense, staring right at him.

“Yeah,” Pat says, startled as much, if not moreso. “I just. You know, hah, convention weirdness.” He makes a wavy hand gesture that is maybe supposed to symbolize _weirdness_, but really doesn’t look like anything.

Brian holds his gaze for a long, expectant moment, before he gives Pat an out. “Yeah, I feel that. I think my heart rate’s finally back to normal.”

“Hah, yeah.”

Brian blinks a few more times, waiting, but when Pat doesn’t make any more noise he picks up his phone again, thumbing across the lock screen—

“Wait!”

Brian drops his phone, fortunately only the two inches from his hand to the couch cushion, but _still_.

“Sorry,” Pat says, his cheeks strawberry-red, his mouth sheepish. “Can um. Can we talk?”

Brian’s lungs plummet into his stomach at the three worst words in the English language, all strung together nervously falling from Pat’s lips. He’s proud of how straight he keeps his mouth, how neutral his voice, when he replies, “Of course, Pat Gill! What’s buggin’ ya?”

“Um.” Pat fidgets. And fidgets again. “Let’s—more private?” He stands and holds out his hand, ostensibly to help Brian to his feet, but then he _doesn’t let go_, oh gosh, and pulls Brian gently by the fingertips into the bedroom off the nightmare crooked-photo room.

Brian pulls the door closed behind himself, and sits next to Pat on the edge of the bed when Pat beckons him over with a head jerk.

“Pat you’re freaking me out a bit, not gonna lie,” Brian says. Pat’s _sweating_. Not a lot, but at his temples and under his jaw, which Brian only notices because those are some of his favorite spots on Patrick’s face to surreptitiously stare at.

“Not trying to,” Pat mumbles. “Sorry, I know I’m being weird, I just—” he breaks off and looks into the mid-distance, like he’s afraid to glance at Brian’s face as he says, “—like okay, feel free to sock me in the jaw and never speak to me again if I’m out of line, but I can’t—this week has. Dude, I really like you.”

Brian can feel his jaw drop open, because of all the things he was expecting Pat to say, that sure as shit wasn’t one of them. He was, honestly? Thinking the opposite. That Pat was a good guy, but he’d tell Brian to cool it with his crush, find a new object of his open-hearted affection. So it feels like all of the blood rushes to Brian’s head, then to the pit of his stomach and back again.

“Sorry?” Brian squeaks.

“I like you. Like, _like-you_ like you,” Pat says, grinning a slightly-manic smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“You gonna pass me a note in Algebra to ask me to homecoming?” Brian asks, his brain on auto-pilot.

“Brian.”

“Wait, were you inspired to confess your feelings by _The_ _L Word? _Oh my _god _Pat, I know you’re wearing, like, the soft butch dream outfit right now, but that’s—”

“_Brian_.”

Brian clamps his mouth shut, takes in Pat’s earnest, nervous face, the way his palm still rests in Brian’s own—clammy, kind of gross and warm, but still _Pat’s_.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m. Why now?” Brian asks. He doesn’t ask, _are you sure?_, because for all Pat’s rambling and stuttering and nervous-white eyes, he seems _pretty fucking sure_. About Brian, at least. “Other than, you know,” Brian tacks on, gesturing toward the door, and beyond it the kitchen, the TV screen.

“It wasn’t that, dumbass,” Pat says, in a tone of voice that sounds almost back to normal. There’s a fond roll of his eyes, which Brian loves so much, as his clammy hand tightens in Brian’s grip. Then Pat continues, “Not—not really. I’ve been thinking about, uh. For a while? But mostly it’s been driving me nuts seeing you, hah, in your pajamas.”

Pat’s free hand is jammed in his pocket, like if he digs deep enough he can turn it completely inside out and swallow himself whole. “Like, texting on the couch, or eating a bagel and shit. Yesterday you—you accidentally dragged your hair through some cream cheese while you were eating breakfast, and my heart grew three sizes, and like.” Pat laughs at himself. “It wasn’t _The L Word_, but how fucking _gay_ is that anyway, needing to tell you how I feel because of your fucking—endearing cream cheese mess. _That’s _why now. You weren’t even shirtless,” Pat adds helplessly, lost and adrift at sea.

Brian giggles, tries to cut off his giggle, can’t stop giggling, like he’s taken some fizzy lifting drink and floating toward the ceiling. He waves his hand and says, “Something, something, something, closeness and intimacy through being comfortable and sharing space—oh my god, I _like-like_ you too, please kiss me, we can dissect it later.”

Pat laughs, incredulous, and raises his hand to cup Brian’s face, his fingers resting behind Brian’s ear, his thumb rubbing across Brian’s cheekbone—so tender, and sweet, and goddamn, how is this Brian’s life?

“I’m pretty sure I’ve got some con crud,” Brian says, stupidly, dumbly, his idiot mouth running away from him when Pat’s hand is cupping his face and—

“Don’t care,” Pat says, and brings their mouths together.

Brian wants to say that it doesn’t feel like fireworks because that’s so cliché, and overdone, and he had to read that phrase so many times in his creative writing workshops. But the thing is—the thing is, it _does _kind of feel like that. He gets some ASMR-like tingles at the base of his neck, and his eyes slam closed so hard that those white energy lines pulse behind his eyelids, and Pat’s rumbling a happy sound into Brian’s mouth the second that Brian’s hands flutter to Pat’s hips. Fireworks.

Pat lingers for another kiss or two or three, then breaks them to sit back, though not far enough away that Brian has to move his hands.

“S-so far, this is my favorite DLC announcement,” Brian blurts, and it makes Pat laugh his big _Oh-Ho! _belly laugh—and oh, somehow Brian, in all the hours they’d spent together, had never noticed that Pat has dimples. He leans in to kiss one, which makes Pat smile even wider. And gosh, Brian simply must _slam_ their mouths together, this second time.

Pat inhales sharply, but barely the length of time of that breath passes before he kisses back in earnest. His fingers shake where they’re scruffing into Brian’s hair. He plies Brian’s mouth open with his tongue, darts in tentatively, as if testing the waters, before drawing the pointed tip of his tongue along Brian’s lower lip. It’s the perfect mix of the confidence from someone who has mastered kissing, yet also the attentiveness of someone who considers himself a lifelong learner.

Brian moans, which makes Pat let out a soft noise against Brian’s mouth, and Brian makes an executive decision to keep this study session moving. He rearranges, straddles Pat’s waist, settles his knees on either side of Pat’s legs. The new position means that his hands and Pat’s switch positions—Pat’s to his waist, to keep him steady, and Brian’s to Pat’s face, holding his jaw, his fingertips curling into Pat’s hair. Pat’s beard is a little scratchy, but mostly nice under Brian’s palms when he rubs along the hairs.

Slowly, he pulls Pat in for long, lush kisses where Brian doesn’t close his eyes until the absolute last moment. He wants to catalogue as much of Pat’s face as he possibly can, now that he’s allowed to look. The freckles on his cheekbones, out in full force from the California summer sun, the curve of his jaw, the laugh lines in his forehead. Brian drags Pat’s bottom lip into his mouth gently, then releases it and presses their lips together slow but firm. Assured. His hips rock slightly with the movement, pushing and pulling like the tide—not quite grinding, but not _not _grinding, either.

Pat trails his hands slowly around to the small of Brian’s back, tucks them under Brian’s shirt. Oh _god_, Pat’s hands are so warm, like a heating pad, as his fingers splay out wide along Brian’s skin. He’s cradling Brian in his large, soft hands, and Brian has never felt so equally horny and also cared for. His dick getting hard, but tenderly.

Brian’s brain goes offline for a second and when he hard-reboots, he’s skipped ahead like seven class periods in the kissing syllabus—and wow, he’s starting to mix metaphors, which means he’s not paying close enough attention to Pat’s tongue sliding into his mouth, Pat’s fingers pulsing in small, gentle circles against his skin.

Brian pushes one of his hands into Pat’s hair and gets just an _excellent _handful of it right against Pat’s scalp. Then he tugs, because how could he not, with all that temptation before him.

Pat _yelps _into Brian’s mouth, Jesus, a loud _ah!_ that scoops up an octave in his register. He presses his mouth harder into Brian’s, his tongue deeper, for two long seconds before he rips away, gasping.

“Holy shit.” Pat runs both of his hands down his cheeks, like he’s trying to bring himself back to earth. Pat’s breathing is heavy, and he’s got this adorable, sheepish smile on his face. There’re those dimples again, _so _cute. “Now you know all my secrets.”

Brian huffs a laugh, but sensing the moment has changed, he unstraddles himself so he can budge up next to Pat on the bed. “I doubt that,” Brian says, his voice crackling like a campfire. He takes Pat’s hand in one of his and rubs his thumb over Pat’s knuckles. “I’m sure there’s still plenty more for me to learn.”

Pat’s eyes go wide and a little wet, at that, like he’s just been told that actually Santa _is _real and he’s bringing Pat a Super Nintendo. It’s so _cute_, and Pat being _cute _shouldn’t make Brian uncomfortably horny, but it does, goddammit. Brian wants to take this somewhere else, somewhere more ~horizontal perhaps for ease of make-out access, but Pat looks raw in a way that Brian’s never really seen him before—not even when he first started at Polygon, and Pat had just come off a hell of a summer. _Last_ summer, gosh.

Brian wants to give Pat another out if this is too much, if it’s too many revelations for one night, for one mortal man. He cups Pat’s jaw in his hand. “You have to head to the airport in like five hours, right?” Brian asks, and Pat groans an aggrieved, _yes_. “We should probably get some sleep.”

Pat sighs. Nods. Fidgets. Brian waits him out. “Would um,” Pat starts, stops, fidgets again. “Do you want to sleep over? I don’t w-want you to leave yet.”

Brian feels his breath catch. He isn’t typically a boy to put out on the first date, but this—sort of isn’t a date? Or a booty call? It’s _Pat_, not some Tinder rando or a blind date that well-meaning Jonah has set him up on with someone from work. Besides, in his wildest pre-con fantasies, he’d really wanted to get his leg up at E3—not like, in a general sense, but in a very specific Pat Gill sense. He didn’t think that was actually going to happen. And now it seems like it is, Pat’s face open and wanting, his hair sticking out on the sides from where Brian _pulled it_, when Pat made the _best _noises.

“Sure,” Brian says, his throat dry. Some tingles work their way up his spine, spread out across his skin like wildfire. It’s _happening_.

“Great,” Pat says immediately, as though he’d been expecting to get shot down and was surprised by the results. “I’m g- I’m gonna brush my teeth, if you, uh. Need to—?”

Brian smiles. “I _do _in fact need to,” he says. “My stuff’s in the other bathroom, so. Back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

He stands on slightly shaky newborn-foal limbs, but as he’s about to take his first step, Pat grabs his wrist and pulls him into another kiss. “Miss you already,” Pat says, kissing kissing kissing. Pat’s smiling into it, their teeth clacking together, but it’s so sweet and so earnest that Brian feels his heart melt even as his dick starts to get hard.

Brian brushes his teeth in the en suite connected to his and Clayton’s room, as quietly as possible since Clayton seems to be asleep with only one earbud in. He also quickly mouthwashes and puts on more deodorant for good measure. Brian feels a little silly doing that, since Pat’s seen Brian when he’s covered in unnamed tea and has the chocolate chip cookie sweats, but still. It’s the principle of the thing. If he’s aiming to get laid, the least he can do is make sure he doesn’t have Pit Stank.

He sneaks past Clayton again, who’s flipped onto his other side with one foot sticking out from under the covers, and hurries down the hallway, scuttling over all their misplaced streaming equipment and cords and god knows what else. When Brian slips into Pat’s room and quietly shuts the door behind himself, he finds Pat perched awkwardly on the end of the bed like he’s never sat on a bed before and doesn’t quite know what to do with his limbs. He’s also still fully dressed, which in Brian’s opinion is a criminal crime.

“I wasn’t, um,” Pat says, pauses, “sure what type of pajamas I should wear? So you’d be comfortable?” It’s so fucking sincere and genuine that Brian feels like he’s gonna chip a tooth on the sweet rock candy of Pat Gill.

“Whatever you normally wear—it’s your bed,” Brian says, smiling dopily in return. “I’m the guest.”

“Yeah,” Pat says, a little awed, and people always say that Brian wears his heart in his eyes, but Pat’s are like a fucking Instagram filter right now, it’s ridiculous, and Brian wants to kiss both of his eyelids for it. “You’re a very welcome guest.”

Brian’s grinning fully now, crinkling his eyes, so wide and open. They’re both smile-drunk at each other, and Brian feels like he’s in that part of a rom com where the music swells and the characters admit their love for each other—but instead, the music crescendos because of how much they both want to get dicked down.

But they’re also both stuck staring at each other, neither sure how to re-make the first move now that their mouths are minty fresh.

Brian coughs. “So should I, uh, go get a bagel, or—”

“Fuck you,” Pat says, but he’s still laughing and smiling and, _hoo boy_, pulling his shirt over his head by the back of the collar. Pat even does one better, then, and unzips his pants.

Brian’s heart does a little _thump-thud_ and sends blood southward because hell. yes. Pat’s down to his briefs, but before Brian can get a good look at what Pat’s literally and also metaphorically packing, Pat slips under the covers. The tease. But Brian can play that game, too—he slides off his pants and shimmies under the covers in his boxer briefs, doesn’t look as he throws his glasses on the nightstand.

For some reason Pat’s sheets are more luxe than the ones in Brian and Clayton’s room, even though it’s obviously the same Airbnb. However, Brian’s joke about the trade-off of good sheets for the bathroom with ventilation dies on his tongue when Pat grabs Brian’s hand under the covers. He rubs his thumb over Brian’s knuckles.

“Hi,” Pat says softly.

“Hi, Pat Gill,” Brian replies, equally soft.

Pat keeps rubbing, rubbing. “Can I kiss you again?”

“Mmhmm.”

Pat leans in and brings them together soft and lush and gentle. Kissing is even better with fresh, minty mouths, Pat parting his lips just enough for Brian to tease his tongue inside. Brian can’t help but make soft, happy noises as they kiss—he’s as contented as a cat in a sunbeam.

Brian settles his other hand on Pat’s hip, and it’s _so _cozy and delightful to have all that skin underneath his palm, so much of Pat that he’s never seen before. When Brian’s thumb caresses Pat’s hipbone, Pat sucks in a soft breath and takes Brian’s bottom lip into his mouth, suckles there for a moment, before he moves on to wrench more noises from Brian’s throat.

It keeps being slow and gentle, plush, Pat not making any move to escalate into something more. Brian doesn’t feel the need to _either_, he could spend all night stealing moments back and forth in their own timeless pocket of space. Brian relishes the opportunity to slowly experiment to find the types of kisses that Pat likes best. He’s nothing if not a thorough researcher. Little nibbles on Pat’s lower lip. Chaste ones on the corner of his mouth, right where Pat always licks when he’s nervous. Ones where Brian gets his palm under Pat’s jaw, feeling the scruff of Pat’s beard while he plies Pat’s lips apart.

Brian doesn’t know that he’s ever felt this way when hooking up with someone for the first time, buried in a warm lil cocoon. And oh, right—they gotta hook up. They should probably pop this bubble, then, soon. And like, get some hands moving south of the equator. Pat’s got a plane to catch.

Brian blinks his eyes open, but they’re heavy, and he can feel them start to droop shut when Pat nuzzles into Brian’s neck and leaves a trail of his soft lips down to Brian’s collarbone. Brian huffs, annoyed at his dang eyes and his dang sleep schedule. He fights to open them again, tries to push through, press his neck more insistently into Pat’s mouth—because if he can get _hard_, it’ll be like he slammed an energy drink.

Pat bends, unhurried, into the next kiss, drags the movement of his lips for-ev-er against Brian’s mouth until it feels like one kiss spans the entirety of five minutes. Then he shifts away and rubs his thumb over Brian’s cheekbone. “What are your thoughts on spooning?” Pat asks, tucking a strand of hair behind Brian’s ear.

“Highly positive,” Brian murmurs. His voice is more sleep-thick and slower than he thought it would be. He clears his throat. “You a lil spoon kind’a guy?”

“Oh fuck yeah,” Pat says emphatically. He kisses Brian’s nose, a quick little _boop_, then flips over and scooches until he’s perfectly nestled in the curve of Brian’s body.

A warm, incredulous feeling percolates in Brian’s stomach as he places two kisses, then another three, on the back of Pat’s neck. Pat invited Brian to sleep over and he literally meant to_ sleep_. Brian doesn’t know what to do with that information, he’ll have to unpack his thoughts on the matter later, but all that pops in his mind is: good. It feels—_really_ good, to be treated like something precious, someone worth keeping around. Even if Brian’s traitor anxiety-brain tries to worm its way between them, whispering, _only because you’re the new piece of ass/only because it’s E3/only because you’re so obvious about your crush_.

Pat shivers a happy little shiver at the press of Brian’s lips, and Brian pushes those thoughts down to the pit of his stomach, then stamps them down farther into his toes. He moves the kisses over to the side of Pat’s neck, which Brian has already established is a spot that makes Pat weak in the knees. “Goodnight,” Brian murmurs, right into the hollow behind Pat’s ear.

Pat shuffles into a more comfortable position. “Mm, I’m gonna set an alarm—"

“Gross.”

“—like an hour early, gotta pack m’stuff.”

“Even grosser,” Brian adds, and Pat swings his arm around to lightly tap Brian on the thigh in admonishment.

“Goodnight to you too,” Pat says with a huff. He nuzzles into the pillow, wiggling for a while until he finds a good sleeping spot.

And when Brian gets his arm nestled perfectly, slung over Pat’s stomach, Pat hums happily and then yawns and then he’s quiet. It’s so tender, and Brian’s so gone for it already, it feels like only several warm-happy seconds before Brian yawns right back and then drifts off to sleep.

\---

Pat has that terrible “nuclear plant meltdown” ringtone as his wake-up alarm, because of course he does. Brian discovers this when it blares into the dark room what feels like only five minutes after he’d fallen asleep. They hadn’t even slept long enough to shift around in the bed. Brian’s chin still rests hooked over Pat’s shoulder while his hand had at some point migrated from Pat’s stomach to his chest, hugging him tight.

Pat grunts, mumbles something that sounds like, _fuckin’ a_, then slips out of Brian’s hold. Brian gives a plaintive _noooo _as Pat rolls to the side of the bed. The only relief is that Pat fumbles around, drops his phone once, twice, then manages to swipe off the alarm (and, Brian hopes, also the snooze).

When he flips over to look at Brian again, Pat’s eyes crinkle as his face morphs into a large, sleepy smile. He shuffles closer so he can, mm, kiss Brian on the forehead. Brian blinks several times, trying to get his eyes to focus when he’s still half-asleep.

“What if you just missed your flight?” Brian asks, his voice hoarse and humid. The room is dark, the shadows casting Pat in eerie relief, and Brian knows if Pat hopped in bed again, he’d be out like a light in thirty seconds.

“Tempting,” Pat says, his voice equally as gruff. “But I’m sure the fellas down in the finance department would not _love _reimbursing me for that.”

Brian _hmphs_ and squeezes Pat’s hand, but ultimately lets Pat move out of the bed. At least _some people_ in the room booked their flights at a reasonable time of day like reasonable human beings.

He tries his level best to fall asleep, he really does. He’s still young enough that he can get up ‘n go on only six hours of sleep and feel no ill effects, but well. Three is asking quite a lot of his post-college body. Sleep is right on the edge of Brian’s fingertips, he can feel it washing over him. And Pat is being so considerate, quietly rustling around for his clothes, gently placing things in bags. But even though Pat’s _also _trying his level best, Brian feels himself fall out of sleep mode and into semi-wakefulness, the imperfectly perfect part of his REM cycle which means he’ll be up for a while now.

Brian cracks open his eye like Zuko does when he’s being bothered mercilessly, and finds Pat still in only his underwear, doing an obscene amount of squatting and twisting and bending to pick up his clothes from the floor.

And now? Brian is Very Awake, like he’d chugged a 5-hour Energy and is primed to _seduce_. Or at the very least, look _seducible_. He runs through his options, the ones he honed like a secret third major at Hopkins. He could play it coy, make soft sleepy noises and flip over onto his stomach, tooch his booty a little. He could also play it slutty, pretend to be having a sex dream, maybe mumble _mm, Pat_ a couple times for good measure. But ultimately, he decides to go with boy next door: soft and approachable—someone you’d bring home to mother, but fuck in your childhood bedroom because you woke up and they looked so goddamn appealing.

He shifts on the bed in such a way that it could be played off as merely changing his sleeping position, but in the process he stretches and turns so that the sheet works down to his hipbones. Yawning, Brian scratches at his scalp, runs his fingers through his hair. He keeps his eyes closed but starfishes his entire body out over the bed as long and wide as he can.

It’s some of his finest acting yet that he doesn’t let on that he’s the smuggest boy in the world when Pat turns around after zipping his suitcase and pauses for a few long, tantalizing seconds. Whatever stops Pat in his tracks, though, he’s able to shake himself loose from Brian’s temptations and lugs his bag closer to the bedroom door.

Brian rolls over and pushes himself into a seated cross-legged position, blinks heavily as though he’s still trying to wake himself up. “You heading out soon?” he asks, and he doesn’t even need to affect the scratchiness in his voice. Score.

“Just gotta get my bathroom stuff,” Pat says. He opens the door to the bedroom and trods down the hall, his gangly limbs swinging akimbo like he doesn’t have full control of them before his first cup of coffee.

Pat left the door ajar, so Brian can hear Pat rustle some bottles and containers around. Brian lets Pat get through the motions of brushing his teeth and splashing water on his face before Brian steps quietly out of the bedroom and, with hopefully more grace, slips behind Pat and shuts the bathroom door. He hops his butt onto the vanity, and Pat gives him a bemused look, eyebrows raised.

“Wanted t’look at you some more before you left,” Brian says, answering the unasked question. “Wanted to make sure this wasn’t just a really good dream.”

Pat beams, and the sight of it sends heat from Brian’s scalp to his toes. It’s _cute_, Pat is so _cute_ and Brian can’t believe he’s here, with _Pat Gill_, swinging his feet in mid-air. Then, Pat’s smile turns into something wicked, something with more bite, which Brian recognizes from their more harrowing episodes of Gill and Gilbert.

Pat steps between Brian’s knees, nudging them apart with the span of his hips. He plants his palms firmly on Brian’s thighs, and wow, they’re so _big_ splayed out like that, Pat’s thumb dipping into the soft skin of Brian’s inner thigh. Pat’s fingertips brush all the way up, almost to Brain’s pelvis, and he can feel every point of contact between them like it’s one of those electric balls he used to play with at the children’s museum in Baltimore.

“You been dreaming ‘bout me?” Pat asks low and hot, his face _stupidly _close to Brian’s own.

“Mmhmm,” Brian hums as he scritches at Pat’s scalp.

Pat leans into Brian’s space even farther, until they’re a whisper apart and the heat from Pat’s body leaks into Brian’s skin. He smells _so good_, like something spicy and—warm, maybe? Look, Brian’s not a Scent Expert, but he’d wear aftershave that smelled like this any damn day.

“What about?” Pat rumbles, moving his thumbs in wide circles over Brian’s thighs. “Usually something like this?”

Goosebumps prickle on Brian’s legs, the hairs standing to attention. “Close,” Brian whispers, “but in my dreams it typically doesn’t take you this long to get your hand on my dick.”

That volley startles a laugh out of Pat, embarrassed, as if seconds ago he wasn’t turning it on for Brian at like five-hundred megawatts.

“I was trying to be a gentleman,” Pat murmurs. He slides his hands from Brian’s thighs to his waist, squeezing and digging his fingers into the muscle he finds there. Pat does an obvious once-over, then—his eyes flick to Brian’s bare chest, then _drag _up until they reach Brian’s face again.

“It was very gentlemanly,” Brian says. He pulls Pat’s head toward his neck, where Pat fortunately gets the hint and presses kisses that spark against Brian’s skin. “I feel very cherished and respected and shit. You’re a good one, Patrick. Buuu-ut,” Brian adds, pressing harder so that Pat’s teeth scrape a little, a soft bite following the push of his lips, “But! You could also definitely be more of a bastard, if you want.”

“Oh I want,” Pat says—growls, really, and it gives Brian more of those ASMR-like tingles as the noise rolls down his back.

Pat moves his left hand to palm Brian’s dick over his underwear and Brian _keens_, drags their mouths together, builds on what he learned last night—three hours ago, _god_. Making out was good then, but now it’s even better with some pressure on his dick that Brian can grind against. Pat’s barely doing anything, just rocking his hand forward, but it’s like a drop of water after being trapped in the desert, and Brian is _thirsty_.

Brian uses his toes to try and push down Pat’s underwear, speed up this whole situation. Pat gets the idea, quickly, chuckles as he tugs them off. God, his cock looks so _fucking _good. It’s not, like, a dick that would get Pat whispered about in a locker room on either end of the size spectrum, but it’s absolutely gonna feel amazing in Brian’s mouth, in his ass, wherever they decide to put it. The heft is criminal, heavy for its size, wide—Brian’s literally and metaphorically salivating. He might even be able to stuff all of it down his throat—probably not this morning, but Brian can certainly offer it as an incentive to entice Future Patrick into a repeat.

“God, baby, love your cock,” Brian murmurs, to which Pat at least has the decency to gasp, and presumably blush, against the side of Brian’s neck. Brian arches his jaw so Pat has more room to lick and nip and suck. It’s torturously good; Brian can’t remember the last time a hookup had started off on such a positive, neck-kissing note. It feels like Pat knows how to raise a good bruise, too, by how he’s purposefully _avoiding_ it, and that’s. Another thought for another day, which as time goes on, Brian is more and more desperate to get. He adds, “Can’t wait to get you inside me.”

Pat moans and then shudders, drags his mouth to Brian’s cheek to pepper it in quick kisses. He brings their lips together for a biting, searching kiss, but Brian breaks it quickly to attach his teeth to the skin of Pat’s collarbone. He has needs, like the need to taste every imaginable inch of Pat’s skin. He wants to fuck so _badly_, he’s aching for it, could definitely go all the way and then some with Pat right now and feel absolutely amazing for it.

But ah, _shit_—Brian realizes there isn’t any lube here, in the bathroom of the very Christian Airbnb, and probably not even in Pat’s bedroom, which regardless is also _down the hall_. Brian does not want to risk Tara or, god forbid, Simone, catching him in such a state. While his brain skips down that track, he also realizes that he didn’t actually ask Pat about his preferences, ah shit again. He’d gotten ahead of himself because a cute boy put his hand on Brian’s dick over his underwear—what is this, high school? Brian chides himself for knowing better.

“If you—if you’d want that, of course,” Brian amends, pausing to lick over the redness on Pat’s collarbone. “To top, that is. How do you like it?”

“Both,” Pat says, quick and half-distracted as he rubs Brian harder and harder through the fabric of his underwear.

Brian whines. “Sick, me too,” he says, and Pat laughs and cups Brian in his hand, and Brian needs to suck the life out Pat Gill through his mouth, or he’ll positively _die_.

Pat crowds in _so _close then, barely a hair’s breadth between them. He wriggles his fingers under Brian’s legs, helps lift his thighs and hips to work Brian’s underwear slowly down his body. They kiss all the while, their mouths sliding against each other, and wowie—Brian is a slut for a good kisser, but this is truly next level. Not even his bare ass on the countertop—though startling, and chilly, and not his favorite of the sensations he’s currently experiencing—can draw him away from Pat’s phenomenal mouth. Besides, the counter warms to his body temperature somewhere around kiss number eleven.

Pat noses along the side of Brian’s neck, straight up his jugular, and that shit shouldn’t be sexy, but look—Brian read _Twilight _at an impressionable age, okay? Sue him. Pat’s teeth come out to play a bit, but he follows the nips with a soothing lick that makes Brian gasp. “Can I touch you?” Pat murmurs, the ghost of his breath washing over Brian’s skin.

“I’d—well I’d be mad if ya didn’t,” Brian replies, flustered.

Between one heartbeat and the next, Pat wraps his hand around Brian’s cock. Brian gasps, his body arcing into the pressure like a sine wave, undulating before it stills. He braces his hands on the counter, white-knuckles the edge, holding on for dear life. “Oh god,” Brian whimpers under his breath—but Pat smirks into Brian’s neck, because he _obviously _heard that, they’re so close together and the bathroom acoustics, with zero ventilation, are great for amplifying sound.

Pat’s hand pauses when it reaches the head of Brian’s cock, stutters for a bit when Pat touches Brian’s foreskin, as though he hadn’t been expecting that. He lingers there, slides the skin over Brian’s glans and then down several times, trying different twisting motions, speeds, firmness. Brian’s not sure if he’s teasing or exploring, and on the one hand it’s very hot, but on the other hand it’s not gonna get Brian there. On the other other hand, he wants to let Pat take his time, learn all of _Brian_’s secrets, but on the other other other hand, he really wants to come, like, this century.

“Just, little faster,” Brian grunts, wrapping his arms around Pat’s shoulders. “You can—_yeah_—little harder, too. Make me feel it.”

Pat swears under his breath but does as he’s told. He spits into his hand and rubs it along with Brian’s precome from the tip to the base of Brian’s cock. The up-slide is _so _much better, then, Pat gripping harder, the wetness getting some of the _good _friction instead of the _bad _friction, and that’s—yeah, that’s so good.

“Fucking hell, Brian,” Pat says, resting his forehead against Brain’s so he can, _god_, so he can look down, watch himself fist Brian’s cock. He breathes out one long, unsteady breath, then adds, “Your _mouth_.”

“You a fan of- of dirty talk?” Brian asks.

Pat kisses Brian’s nose, then whines when Brian digs his fingernails into his shoulders. His hand squeezes harder around Brian’s cock, on accident, but Brian yelps and kisses kisses kisses into Pat’s mouth, rocks his hips toward Pat’s hand.

When they break apart, Pat goes right back to the forehead press as he speeds up his hand into something that has his fist flying over Brian’s cock, like Brian does for himself when he’s alone on a time crunch. “That’s an- an understatement,” Pat says.

“Noted,” Brian replies, which makes Pat’s hand go _even faster, _fuck _yes_.

Brian’s still not sure if they’re ever gonna get the chance to do this again outside the weird liminal space of E3, but he’s gonna take that signal—this _whole _thing happening between their bodies—as signs pointing to yes. Pat’s a good one. Brian knows that in his heart, like he knows that he needs to stay grounded in the present and savor this moment. Just in case.

Pat returns to teasing the head of Brian’s cock with fast, short strokes that make his breath feel like each one punches out of his body, but it’s not—it’s not quite—

“Please,” Brian says, kissing at Pat’s cheek, “C’mon, I’m—” Brian jerks his hips forward as far as he possibly can on the vanity. Thank god Pat gets the memo and really gives it to him then, strips Brian’s cock with a delicious twist that makes it feel as if Brian’s fucking Pat’s fist. And, holy shit, it’s even better when Brian grabs Pat around the waist and hauls him in so they’re pressed together.

Pat’s hand crams between their bodies, his wrist bumping against Brian’s stomach on each pulse, his dick pressing into Brian’s knee, the hot friction of it all overwhelming Brian’s senses. Brian’s letting loose with small begging things, _please_, and _yes_, and _more_, and _Pat, god_, and Pat keeps pressing kisses all over Brian’s skin, and those are perhaps undoing him the most, ironically, these light-quick things, so tender and soft and incongruous with how Pat’s jerking him. It’s—_oh_—it’s only a few more of those kisses before Brian gasps a huge, wet inhale.

“Please kiss me,” Brian says, he can’t, he needs—

Fortunately Pat is on top of things, because he shoves their mouths together without hesitation. And when Brian comes with a shout not five seconds later, most of the sound is muffled into Pat’s teeth and tongue and lips. Brian spasms, his fingers trembling around Pat’s waist, his right leg kicking out and almost nailing Pat in the thigh, his hips bucking, his cock spilling all over Pat’s wrist, Brian’s thighs.

Pat works him through it with slower, soothing strokes that give the _perfect _amount of sensitive prickles while Brian’s pelvis decides whether it wants to twist closer or farther away. By the time Brian nudges Pat’s hand away he’s feeling right on that edge of _too-much_, but then Pat lifts his hands to pet over Brian’s waist and that’s actually worst, almost.

“Ticklish,” Brian murmurs, pressing his hands over Pat’s to still them.

“Sorry.”

They stand like that for a while, Pat’s palms large and firm over Brian’s lower belly, while Brian takes a minute to breathe and get the feeling back in his toes. He could definitely bask in the afterglow of that frankly way-too-good of an orgasm, considering it was a bathroom handjob. But he can’t bask for too long, because they’re on a serious time crunch and also because Brian has fantasized for like _six months _about what Pat looks like when he comes. He’s desperate to see this through to its logical end.

“What can I do for you?” Brian asks, nudging his foot around to press against Pat’s calves. “What do you want?”

Pat grins and kisses Brian’s cheek, then does it again like he can’t help himself. “Anything you’ll give me,” he says.

“Okay that’s very romantic and sexy,” Brian replies, getting Pat back with a kiss where Pat’s jaw meets his neck, before continuing, “but this is all about you right now, hot shot. How do you want to come?”

Pat stumbles, and if the comparison wouldn’t _totally _ruin the mood, Brian would say that he looks like a confused dog, cocking his head, hair flopping into his eyes. Brian runs his hand through his own hair to push it behind his ears, resolutely ignoring that his hand is wet.

“Uh, you okay?” Brian asks, when Pat’s silent for longer than the four seconds that question should allow, in Brian’s mind.

Pat shakes his head—like a dog coming out of a swimming pool, clearing water out of its ears, no stop that—and rubs over Brian’s thigh like he needs something to do with his hands. “Yeah, sorry, I just. Don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that before?”

That makes Brian’s heart pang with a full heavenly chorus of emotions that he can’t dive into at the moment, but his face must betray at least a handful of them, because Pat coughs and quickly adds, “Uh, I mean, I’d love for you to blow me, if you’re on board.”

“Technically I’m on the counter—” Brian replies, and Pat looks relieved that Brian dropped the subject, good call, “—but holy shit am I down to suck your dick.”

Brian hops off the counter and searches around for the perfect cushion for his knees—because Simone will never let him live it down if tomorrow (today, _Jesus_) he looks like he’s been washing the floors—and finds it in the pile of towels Pat had kicked over by the shower. He gathers them into a tighter mass for his purposes, then settles on his knees onto the terrycloth. Pat awkwardly steps closer but only, like, two inches, so Brian grips him by the calves and hauls Pat forward until he’s close enough for Brian to kiss his hairy thighs.

“Wow, I was right before—you have the _perfect _dick,” Brian says, now that he can finally see it up close and personal.

“No, you,” Pat mumbles. His cheeks are bright red.

“I’m talking about you right now,” Brian says, lifting his hands to splay around Pat’s hips. “Don’t distract me.”

Pat huffs, but the breath is quickly, sharply re-inhaled as a gasp when Brian catches the head of Pat’s dick on his tongue. “Perfect,” Brian repeats, and then he fucking _goes for it_. He wraps his fingers around the base of Pat’s cock, holds it steady while his mouth slides down to meet his knuckles. Pat raises his fist to his mouth and bites his hand to keep from making too much noise, but the noises that _do _escape make Brian wish he could get hard again so soon.

He tries to focus on every little detail. Pay attention to the big stuff and the small: the way Pat lets out small whimpers with each exhale, barely discernible but definitely still there; the way Pat’s fingers feel carding through his hair, tentative until Brian rumbles his approval, and then much more confident as they tighten in the strands; the way Pat lists his body toward Brian, like he wants to surround himself in the good feelings so they never, ever stop.

Brian feels that desire too, to take and keep and hold fast for as long as possible. He’s not sure how long this is gonna last when they’re on the east coast. Sure, Pat had done his big feelings confession, and Brian had responded in kind, but well—what happens at E3, right? It’s not a secret that people get horny at cons, especially ones where they’ve rented a decent house on the company credit card. Sure, maybe Brian will get one or two more fucks out of this—god, he hopes that, at least—but Brian doesn’t get that many lucky breaks. He’s already got the job, there’s no way he also gets the boy.

In one of those hopeful-future hookups he can take Pat apart slowly. Set to learning everything that makes him whine, and then withhold those things until Pat begs. Snark and simper and backtalk until Pat tortures Brian in exactly the same way. But now they’re in a bathroom, with no ventilation, like five feet away from where their _boss is sleeping oh my god_, and Pat has a plane to catch. Brian dials into the two or three things he’s learned so far that make Pat grunt and stutter his hips, and repeats those. He reaches higher, presses Pat’s hands more firmly into his hair until Pat’s palms cradle his skull.

Brian glides up Pat’s cock with a too-loud wet noise, a sucking slurp as he tries to catch his breath. There’s still spit connecting his tongue to the head. “Y-you can fuck my—push my head,” Brian says, moving his hands to Pat’s hips to give himself better leverage. “Just don’t choke me unless you tell me first.”

“Oh, fuck _me_,” Pat groans, bitten off before it echoes on the bathroom tiles.

“Don’t have time,” Brian says, glib. He goes a little too far on his next pass, tries to bite off more than he could chew—well, metaphorically, he’s not _that much_ out of practice—and gags when Pat’s cock hits the back of his throat. But Brian recovers quickly, the show must go on, and he focuses on suckling the head while his throat stops spasming. That must still be doing it for Pat, because Pat whines and starts to babble while he pets at Brian’s hair. The words lick out of Pat’s mouth and down Brian’s back.

“Yes, baby, you’re—you’re s-so good at that, holy shit.” Pat applies gentle pressure with his hand—_so_ polite, Brian’s really looking forward to throwing that politeness to the wind at some point—and rocks his hips forward while keeping Brian’s head steady and attached to his cock. “Your _mouth_, I’m. I didn’t. _God_, yes, do that thing with your tongue again, please, _oh—_”

Brian swirls his tongue, sloppy and wet, then uses his grip on Pat’s hips to tug him closer. It’s not enough for Pat to choke him, but the perfect amount for Brian to extrapolate what that _might _be like, if they were to do this again in another context. How it might feel for Pat to grab his hair and fuck his face. And Pat _wants _it, is the thing—his fingers twitch in Brian’s hair like he’s desperate to _yank_, get Brian so deep on his dick that his nose presses to Pat’s groin. _Later, later_, Brain thinks, moaning, choked off by the girth in his mouth.

Pat swears but doesn’t buck chaotically, even when Brian gags but like, in a hot way. It’s enough to confirm that not only does Pat know what he’s doing, but he’s _good _at it. Brian’s toes tingle from want and maybe also a little because his legs are falling asleep on the hard tile floor. He knows he has to hurry up, but he doesn’t _want _to—thinks that if he took his time, he could get hard again from the heft of Pat’s thick cock in his mouth, the grip of his hands on Brian’s head, the smell of sex and sweat and musk draped over him like a humid fog.

When Brian looks up, Pat is staring at his stretched lips, transfixed, his mouth faintly parted. Pat’s achingly beautiful like this, hovering on the edge. His movements shift slightly out of rhythm as his fingers shudder against Brian’s hair. When Pat tears his eyes away from Brian’s mouth, he gasps at the eye contact and his hips swivel counterpoint. So Brian holds it, unblinking, knows how to _get _Pat, makes his eyes wider, pleading, doe-like. And sure enough, Pat moans out a soft, “Oh g—oh _fuck_,” as he crunches inward and falls apart.

Brian works him through it with a few more longing sucks as Pat softens in his mouth. He wonders how far into oversensitivity Pat likes to go, if he wants the tingles to get a little sharp and bitter right at the end of the sweet. But apparently, it’s not that far at all. Brian licks once more across the head and Pat practically jerks out of his mouth with a hiss. “Sorry,” Brian murmurs, but he’s quickly forgiven by Pat’s hands cradling Brian’s jaw so tenderly, so sweetly. Brian preens and closes his eyes. He could kneel here, on the hard tile floor, with terrycloth imprints in his shins—well, maybe not forever, but a good long while, at least.

The moment feels drawn out and lovely, Brian blinking his eyes open to the harsh fluorescent lights creating a _literal halo_ around Pat Gill’s head, Pat’s fingers gently stroking over his cheekbone, his jaw.

And then Pat’s ten-minute warning alarm goes off.

They both scramble, lots of _shit shit shit_ as Brian tugs on his shorts, as Pat sweeps his bathroom stuff into his bag with a grand wave of his arm. Pat calls a Lyft and oh—it’ll be here in four minutes.

That’s it.

_We only got four minutes to save the world_, Brian hums, and either Pat didn’t hear it or he didn’t understand the reference, but either way they’re both standing awkwardly next to Pat’s suitcase while Daryl in his beige Honda CR-V makes his way to the house. It feels weird, there’s no way it couldn’t, with the taste of Pat’s come rapidly turning gross inside Brian’s mouth, and Pat fidgeting with his hands in his pockets.

“Can I—” Brian starts, pauses, reconsiders. “Can I walk you to your door?”

Pat laughs and runs his hands through his hair. He smiles sheepishly, and Brian can feel himself doing the same. Pat hauls his suitcase out to the front door, next to all of the weird, crooked frames containing various Psalms, and Brian shuffles behind quietly, so as not to wake anyone else in the house.

“I had a great time tonight,” Pat says softly, continuing the joke.

“Me too,” Brian says, grinning. “I’d like to see you again.”

Pat goes to answer, but then his phone dings, signaling that the Lyft is here and he has five minutes to get outside before it leaves. There’s an awkward pause between them again, after being interrupted, and Pat scratches at the back of his neck like a video game idle animation.

Brian rocks heel-toe, heel-toe. “So uh,” he starts. “Is this, _ha_, the part where we hem and haw for an hour about a goodnight k—”

And Pat takes Brian by surprise, darts in and kisses him again. Quick, but no less sweet for it. It’s lingering, soft, Brian’s hands shifting out of his pockets to gently hold Pat’s hips while Pat’s long arms drape over Brian’s shoulders. Pat hesitates before drawing away, like he doesn’t want it to end any more than Brian does.

“I’m free Monday at 5:01 p.m.,” Pat says with a wry quirk of his lips. He touches his tongue to the corner of his mouth in what’s rapidly becoming Brian’s favorite of Pat’s nervous tics.

“Sounds perfect,” Brian breathes. It’s a little, uh, _much_, but at least Brian stops himself from saying _It’s a date!_ and showing his whole ass—especially since he’s about to be out of the country for two weeks, and like. That’ll probably be it, then.

Pat slips out the door with one last soft, _bye!_, and then he’s gone, and Brian’s locking the door, and breathing once, twice, thrice into the soft quiet California morning. Brian doesn’t even think about it before heading to Pat’s room instead of his own. He just goes, and shuts Pat’s door, and starfishes onto the bed again—which smells mostly like Pat but a little like Brian too, and that’s. Nice.

The sheets’ve barely had time to cool, they’d only been out of them for such a short amount of time. Brian wants to bury himself in the warmth and the smell and the innate homey-ness of it all, which is probably going to screw him over in four weeks, when he hasn’t moved on past this E3 fling and Patrick definitely has.

However, being in Pat’s bed, smelling that spicy aftershave, also makes Brian _hard _again, and that’s much easier to think about than the inevitability of Brian’s broken heart.

Sometimes he feels good making the bad choice, even if it’s gonna hurt him later.

Brian palms himself over his shorts, turns his head into the pillow and breathes Pat in. Imagines what it might be like if they had more _time_, if Pat was still here instead of making awkward small talk in the back of a Lyft, if Pat could hold Brian down and make Brian sob with how good it felt to be under Pat’s body.

Pat’s stupidly strong arms and his stupidly good body.

Brian gets a fucking _galaxy brain_ idea, as the kids say, and fumbles around in the tangled sheets for his phone. It’s only 22-percent charged, but that’s more than enough for Brian’s dark deeds. He pops the button on his shorts one-handed as he loads the Twitch app.

Then he pushes his hand into his pants, searches _pizza_suplex_, and gets to _work_.

\---

_“People online eat it up, you know. Call you _daddy_ and use w- water droplet emojis in your Twitter mentions. After that first time we hooked up? As you headed to L-A-X, I looked up all of your thirst trap photos and videos and laid myself out in your bedroom.”_

_. . . . “I fucked myself, P- Pat Gill. I breathed you in and fucked myself on the sheets we’d just been in together. You’re a pretty bastard, you know. You, I guess, you must do it on purpose. Those Twitch streams where you wore tank tops? I looked at those chat records, baby. Everyone could see how—_oh god_—how good you would look taking cock. How delicious your collarbones would be covered in bruises.”_

_—Chapter 3_


End file.
